‘Cover-Up’ Review: A Stunning Documentary

Laura Poitras launched her career on documentaries that explore whistleblowers and hidden abuses of power. Her trilogy on the War on Terror culminated with Citizenfour, which depicts her communications and eventual meetings with Edward Snowden immediately prior to his disclosures of mass government surveillance. I think it’s one of the most important films ever made, a portrait of a man in the Garden (of Eden or Gethsemane, take your pick), on the precipice of ruining his life to change the world. It’s a genuine artifact that historians will be referencing for decades to come. In summary, Citizenfour > Citizen Kane.

The fact that Poitras tops it with All the Beauty and the Bloodshed is all the more stunning. A biography on the artist Nan Goldin and detailing her fight to expose the Sackler Family and their culpability in the opioid epidemic. It is a staggering examination of art and activism, life-affirming and heartbreaking all at once. 

Now, Poitras has teamed with Mark Obenhaus for Cover-Up, to cover a new subject; the investigative journalist Seymour Hersh. 

He’s interesting enough as an interview subject, but it’s not really a fair comparison to interviewing Snowden in Hong Kong or Nan Goldin, who effortlessly seems to be the most interesting person who ever lived. What makes Hersh compelling is his position as a sort of Forrest Gump for the dark side of American history; he has an uncanny ability to be connected in some way to every covert operation scandal in the latter half of the 20th century. 

Through him, Poitras and Obenhaus explore a litany of American sins and the standard operating procedure of cover-up. Hersh exposes the My Lai Massacre. He covers Watergate. He helps uncover the U.S. bombing of Cambodia. He reveals illegal mass surveillance of American citizens by the CIA in Operation CHAOS. He shows that Kissinger funneled millions into Chile to help overthrow Allende and install Pinochet. He exposes torture at Abu Ghraib. 

Poitras knows how to make you feel like you are on the frontlines of a conspiracy or uncovering one, having been on both sides herself. But if it sounds like I’m retelling the story of a brave man who fought the system and won every time, I’m not. 

Poitras and Obenhaus fill the frame with stunning archival footage, photography, reporting and articles from the time. I know all these images well but it is always shocking to see the children of My Lai riddled with bullets and strewn on the side of the road. It is still haunting to see The Hooded Man of Abu Ghraib after all these years, standing on a box, arms outstretched with wires to electrocute him. It is still enraging to see Sabrina Harman posing next to the corpse of Manadel al-Jamadi after being tortured to death, with a thumbs-up and the widest smile imaginable. It is still infuriating to hear Donald Rumsfield try to deny and negotiate the exact definition of “torture,” juxtaposed with some of the worst images ever captured. On a big theatre screen with a dead silent audience, the images seem to glow and sear all the more.

Images are the key. At one point, Hersh is asked what would have happened if the photos of Abu Ghraib had not been available, what would have happened. He answers obviously, that the whole thing would have just been swept under the carpet with little attention, reduced to hearsay.

But what about even with the images? There is an air of futility floating in Poitras’ work, a slow erosion of journalism and justice. Citizenfour ends with Snowden speaking out loud about the positive effects of his disclosures and the possibility of a brighter future, all the while still writing messages on paper to avoid audio surveillance, which is torn after reading. All the Beauty and the Bloodshed features prominently Goldin’s photography, a beautiful and vibrant collection of her and her friends, of whom she seems to be the sole survivor, haunted by memory. She ekes out one win over the Sacklers, but what is that in the face of half a million dead from the opioid epidemic? 

Poitras had been trying to interview Hersh for the past two decades. She probably understands him better than any other documentarian could, given her own background. She’s kind of like a documentary version of Michael Mann, and Hersh is her Lowell Bergman (fitting, as 60 Minutes also covered stories from My Lai to Abu Ghraib and is featured in the film). He is a skeptical curmudgeon, reluctant to answer certain questions and threatens to quit throughout the filming. One could call him paranoid but given his career and penchant for pissing off presidents and intelligence leaders, that would be incredibly unwise (Poitras herself was contacted by Snowden not in spite of her placement on surveillance watchlists but because of it). When we see him at the age of 88, the son of a Holocaust survivor surrounded by boxes full of decades worth of notes he has taken on dozens of atrocities, speaking to an anonymous researcher in Gaza who promises to deliver him the X-rays of children gunned down by Israeli quadcopter drones, it’s not exactly triumphant. 

Hersh’s life and career is a product of a series of miracles. But what if miracles are not enough? What is the purpose of pulling back the curtain if it simply zips back into place? Hersh’s incredible work to expose Operation CHAOS leads to the resignation of James Angleton, chief of the counterintelligence department of the CIA. A year later, Gerald Ford reshuffled his cabinet, appointing a new CIA director, Secretary of Defense and Chief of Staff. Enter George H.W. Bush, Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney. 

It’s Sisyphean. 

Between 347 and 504 unarmed civilians were murdered at My Lai. The women and children were tortured and raped. Lt. William L. Calley Jr. was charged with 109 counts of murder. He was found guilty on 22 counts of premeditated murder. He was the only person convicted in connection to the massacre. Jimmy Carter declared a day in his honour. Flags were flown at half mast in support of him, to protest his treatment. He served 3 days in prison. He died a free man last year. Kissinger the year before. Nixon was pardoned. Pinochet remained in power for 17 years. Thousands were killed and tens of thousands were tortured. Where do we even get started with Iraq?

Edward Snowden is never coming home though. There’s that I guess. I wait in anticipation for Poitras’ next work. It’s a shame that it’s so necessary, and always will be.

Cover-Up screened at the Toronto International Film Festival. It was directed by Laura Poitras and Mark Obenhaus. It stars Seymour Hersh.

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